A Ridiculous State of Affairs
by moosemaster
Summary: Bookverse, Caprice-in-the-Pines arc of stories, Gelphie. "What a terrifically sour comedy this was making out to be."
1. Six hours on a Train

**Author's Note:**

Not my characters or places. Old, found deep in bowels of computer, quickly jotted down fic, not beta-ed.

I have tweaked facts just the slightest bit. Or rather, I have tweaked assumptions, such as the assumption that Elphaba and Co. returned from Caprice-in-the-Pines by carriage, which would make sense, but was never stated, and so: train. We'll pretend they left their carriage for Avaric and the ladies to use. And Grommetik? Well, we'll assume he got shunted into the baggage car.

**Part 1: Six Hours on a Train**

His legs dangling uncomfortably off the edge of the seat, Boq was sure that the train mustn't have been designed by Munchkins; this train, with its large cushioned benches, with its doors that hissed open and chomped closed as one passed through them, tearing from Elphaba both a corner of her dress and what Boq reasoned to be an oath.

"Tik tok devilry," she had griped with a sour face, tasting the flavor of her own unionist roots thick in her curse.

While Elphaba looked about to spit, Galinda gracefully took advantage of Boq's chivalry and wafted by him to seat herself by the compartment window. Coming out of his bow, Boq felt a rush of warm gratitude for both tradition and Elphie's defiance of it, Galinda's puff of displaced air bringing with it tales of her sweet perfume. Boq was glad that Elphaba had marched forward first, for he might have squealed had the door tried for a nibble of his rear end, with Galinda there to witness, and Elphaba there to comment.

By the window sat Galinda and Elphaba. For the first hour, Galinda gazed pointedly out the window, back straight and ears pink, contemplating the rain with a seriousness that made Boq question whether she had noticed it to be raining at all. She eventually gave up contemplation in favor of perusing a very glossy, very colorful magazine. Propped crookedly across from her, Elphaba read, alternately scratching her nose and squinting down at her text, occasionally jerking back from it with an incredulous snort, startling the rest of the compartment's inhabitants but for Ama Clutch, who had installed herself beside Galinda, had nestled into herself like a great hoopskirted hen, and had been asleep before the train left the station. Boq, whose suspended legs were beginning to ache and who was left sitting next to Elphie, found himself feeling intensely jealous of her.

Two hours into her nap, Ama Clutch began to mumble. Two hours into her book, Elphaba followed suit. The train passed a vine-draped castle, and Galinda's head swiveled violently, devouring it with her eyes. Boq felt very alone, and swung his legs. Then Boq felt childish, too.

When a dining car passed by to serve a light dinner, Galinda laid claim to her oblivious Ama's portion as well as her own, picking the grapes from her spring salad and folding them in her napkin. "I don't know why something so very tart isn't allowed to ripen," she said. Elphaba rolled her eyes, her long fingers absently peeling the membranous skin from one of her own grapes, gouging eyes and a frown in its unprotected flesh with the nail of her little finger. Boq silently agreed with them both; sour grapes are much better for ignoring or picking apart than for eating.

The third hour was very long. Ama Clutch began to snore. Elphaba's breathing was audibly deep and her breath visibly wet on her parted lips, her eyes seemingly closed. Her forehead was smooth and beautiful, raindrops on the window staining her skin with their shadows. Elphaba seemed to be reading, though neither Boq nor Galinda were sure as to Elphaba's exact level of consciousness. Every few minutes, she would drag a bony hand across the open face of the book and turn a page. To her curious onlookers, for some unfathomable reason this proved nothing.

Boq awoke to a hushed titter, followed by a low asthmatic drone. Through the sandy screen of lowered eyelashes, he saw bare feet, Galinda's, pudgy and pink and up on the seat cushion. His mind sputtered sleepily, trying to make sense of what his eyes were being offered. Galinda leaned across the divide to peer at something, her magazine crumpling in her lap. Ama Clutch let out another sighing, wheezing snore. Elphaba shoved her book closer to Galinda, her finger stabbing at the page. "'Bombinate'," she whispered. Galinda giggled, "how awful!" Boq let himself slide back into unconsciousness.

Watching them sleep made his stomach dance with guilt. They were nearly symmetrical, heads on arms, slumped, legs extended, leaning their weight into the window. A compromised daylight struggled through the rain, sucking away all color and casting the compartment into a sharp relief of shadows and lights, nooks and crannies.

He followed the shadow of Elphaba, from her arm down to where it lay on her leg, flowing long and lean under it's shroud of skirting. She disappeared abruptly into boot. Laces, leather, black as tar down to the toe, which was worn and gray with scuff marks. His brow knit in confusion. Against that rough, black, coarseness was a round and delicate lightness. That dainty foot was pressed sole to sole, flush against Elphie's wretched old boot. Those perfect toes wriggled, gently tracing tiny circular patterns on the beaten leather. Boq raised his head and started, startled to see Galinda's eyes wide open. Galinda was gazing down at her own foot conversing with Elphie's, which rested inert on the floor. Galinda was smiling. Her big toe dislodged a clump of dirt. Nose wrinkling, she bit her lip, and Boq went back to observing through his eyelashes, for Galinda's sake.

They arrived at Caprice.

Avaric had wonderful stories about lace and perfectly done-up satin bows and even more perfectly un-done satin bows, and so very many girls all in the same small carriage, with few seats and many laps. Boq had sore legs and Elphaba's incoherent mumblings about "abstract enthusiasts of the empirical system", and strange frolicking images of boots and toes.

At Caprice, Avaric went to bed with a hard-on.

At Caprice, Boq curled up on a proper-sized chair with a book and munched on a napkinful of sour grapes.


	2. A Day at Caprice in the Pines

Summary: A prequel of sorts to Six Hours on a Train. "Elphaba stayed in her room for a day. Galinda came and went with a dinner. On occasion she would stay for a few minutes." p. 123

**A Day at Caprice-in-the-Pines**

"Well, really," Galinda huffed, depositing her tray with a clatter on the polished surface of an ornately wrought antique Ozma XIX coffee table.

Elphaba, naked toes buried in an ocean of exotic-looking carpet, turned a page and picked her nose with what Galinda interpreted to be a very calculated affectation of nonchalance. Galinda stomped her foot, causing a dollop of split-pea-and-oxgrass soup to slop over the rim of the porcelain tureen.

Her body folded strangely on the rug at the foot of a majestically carved reproduction of a pre-Unification Gillikinese tribal throne, Elphaba looked up. Her eyes fixed on the thick trail of mossy green soup leisurely tracking its way down the side of the bowl. Shifting her gaze from her verdant lunch to Galinda's impatiently narrowed eyes, Elphaba raised a meaningful eyebrow.

"Oh for goodness' sake," Galinda blurted out with a wail of irritation, "it's only soup!"

Her curls vibrating with indignation, Galinda marched towards the door, gesticulating madly.

"And why you can't sit on a perfectly lovely chair like a perfectly normal person is beyond even my sensibilities."

Elphaba waited for the door to slam, the corners of her mouth quirking when the door merely shut with a gentle snik. Hearing the receding patter of Galinda's satin slippers, Elphaba raised herself to perch on the edge of the throne, like a perfectly normal person, a gentle smile gracing her face.

* * *

Her visits seemed to coincide perfectly with Elphaba's page turns, as though she knew exactly how to locate and exploit that split second where Elphaba's concentration had to break and her guard be let down in order to progress. Elphaba wasn't sure whether she ought to be infuriated or grateful. Such was the effect of Galinda, she supposed: that perplexing duality of character that Elphaba wasn't sure she ought to waste -to spend- time deciphering (however much the prospect appealed to her).

As Galinda leaned over her shoulder to peer myopically at Elphaba's reading, an errant curl insinuated its golden presence between Elphaba's lips. It smelled of crabapples and tasted of hair, and only then did it occur to Elphaba to wonder, as tinkling summer echoes of splashing water and frolicking classmates breezed through imported Arjiki cotton curtains, why Galinda and her hair were there at all.

A full minute elapsed before Galinda hurried off to change into proper late-afternoon wear, leaving Elphaba's mind spinning with waves of abstract confusion. A minute of her life had been spent in an absurdly expensive chair sampling the hair of a socialite while reading about The Prevalence of Mental Disorders Amongst the Higher Classes. Never had her life been as exceptionally ridiculous, or as alarmingly comfortable. Her head felt airy and disconnected, drunk with befuddlement.

Her hand absently started turning pages.

When Galinda returned, her dress -teal with double ruffles down the back- requiring doing up, something in Elphaba's chest twinged at the return to habit. Her hand had been poised for a page turn. Instead it found itself groping about for smooth laces that felt so very foreign, until she realized that the foreignness had been the skin of Galinda's back and the laces were, in fact, clasps.

* * *

Galinda only just remembered to wipe her mouth before entering Elphaba's lair. Elphaba turned her page, her eyes flickering only briefly from the text, face involved in creating a look of utmost concentration. Galinda tossed her hair.

"Well, Miss Elphaba, you look like you've enjoyed a most eventful evening."

Elphaba let out a sneering chortle, a slightly pained sound, as if laughter were something sharp that had caught in her throat. Galinda suddenly felt a thousand kinds of irony, and realized for the briefest of moments how utterly far Madame Morrible's quells had been from attaining it.

With an inelegant jerk, Elphaba's head snapped up from her book, skewering Galinda with an unreadable stare.

Galinda felt herself blushing.

Stumbling away from the swing and Boq's wet lips and eerily dilated pupils, Galinda had wondered whether her lips were swollen and well-kissed; bruised, like in the stories she of course never read. Now, pinned like an insect under the weight of Elphaba's scrutiny, she fervently prayed to the heavens that Boq had truly been as unskilled at the art of passion as he had seemed to be to Galinda. Or failing that, hopefully Elphaba, having no doubt neglected that particular subset of literature, would be oblivious to the signs of a Thoroughly Ravished Maiden. Galinda trembled with nervous expectancy.

Elphaba lifted her chin, and their eyes locked. The room, completely still, thrummed with an electric, anticipatory silence. The air was pleasantly cool, and an evening breeze wafted though the window, rustling the drapes. Galinda heard Pfannee laugh, a far off sound carried by the wind.

Perhaps, had Galinda been in less of a state, she might have noticed that Elphaba's seat was just that much closer to the window than it had previously been, or that Elphaba's skin tone had become just that much closer to 'forest' than 'apple'.

Elphaba opened her mouth to speak, and Galinda bolted from the room.

Preoccupied with fleeing, Galinda thought nothing of Elphaba's guilty blush. Had she, perhaps she would have understood the startled look on Elphaba's face as she returned to her text, realizing that upside-down and backwards wasn't the best way to read any book, even one as frivolous and un-Elphaba as "Astrology and the Famous: Written in the Stars".

The door having already closed behind her, Galinda was oblivious as Elphaba flung the hastily grabbed book to the floor and threw a pained look out the window, where Boq was still sitting on the porch swing, a lovestruck grin on his face.

* * *

Abulia, she read, just as Galinda slipped into the room. Elphaba blinked, wary of coincidence. Shuffling her weight from foot to foot, Galinda looked apologetically at the regally poised Elphaba, whose steady gaze and slow blink said simply, You first.

Galinda said, "I'm not really inter-"

"Don't bother," Elphaba interrupted. Galinda wrung her hands.

"Boq and I were ju-"

"Whatever it is, it's bound to change," said Elphaba, matter-of-factly. Bitterly.

"Why Miss Elphaba, you aren't jeal-"

"You just sort of float. You enter when you choose, you leave when you choose, you flit about like some tinseled moth, living in your own little bubble..." Elphaba floundered, aware that she was gibbering. Regaining her composure, she jabbed a long finger at her book of mental disorders and read in her most scholarly voice.

"'Abulia: abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions.'" She looked up at Galinda -who was hovering between the chair and the door- with her most pointed stare. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it, though," Elphaba mused, thumbing through the pages. "I do hope it's not catching."

A very familiar outrage blossoming in her chest, Galinda stopped her uneasy fidgeting and tilted her head. Now that she honestly looked, Galinda noticed the empty, lonely bowl of old soup, dwarfed by the now-cold tureen. She noticed the way Elphaba ducked her head and cradled her own book in her lap, Pfannee's silly Astrologer's Digest (Celebrity Edition) lying dejectedly on the floor. She saw how small Elphaba was in that massive throne, green toes gripping the edge of the cushion with a white-knuckled intensity that Galinda didn't quite understand. Her impending indignant sputter died down to a long-suffering sigh.

A cackle erupted from the floor below them, shattering the moment with a painfully appropriate burst of reality. Galinda felt... enlightened.

"You can't even decide who your friends are," said Elphaba.

Galinda giggled.

Ever sensitive to ridicule, Elphaba's face darkened instantly into a venemous glare as she drew in a sharp breath. But before she could let it out in her usual torrent of verbose fury, a tiny finger pressed itself against her pursed lips, a warm hand closing itself over her own.

Suddenly beside her, Galinda lowered herself until their eyes were level.

"Oh you silly thing," she whispered, "I'm here, aren't I?"


	3. Why Galinda Sulked

**Summary:** Man, I wrote this a long time ago

GELPHIE! Back from Caprice-in-the-Pines, Elphaba does some gardening, and Galinda has a revelation.

**Why Galinda Sulked**

Galinda noticed that Elphaba didn't sweat.

At home in Frottica gazing out the window on hot summer days, licking at a dripping ice lolly, Galinda had always wrinkled her nose at the help. A burly gardener might, laying aside his spade, flex his arms over his head, sinewy back muscles shifting over each other under sun-kissed skin, iron cords under velvet. Sweaty velvet, Galinda would think with a grimace and lay aside her summertime harlequin with its sun-kissed and sinews and velvets and other little white lies that Galinda both resented and longed for. She longed for meaningful meaningless trysts, for loves that ended in heartbreak, death, for scoundrels to catch her eye with a wink, causing her heart to flutter, to pound against her heaving bosom like a bird trapped in its cage.

A burly gardener might, mid-stretch, glimpse her in her window out of a corner of his eye and wink roguishly. Galinda would sniff and turn her head, not entirely out of propriety, and feel cheated. Galinda didn't care for sweat. Nor did she care for ice lollies, for that matter, but Ama Clutch always swore by them on hot summer days, as ladies need to keep cool ("Wouldn't do to get flushed, duckie"). Galinda didn't see how having to stick one's tongue outside of one's mouth to run it along the length of such an unpleasantly cold and sour treat was in any way ladylike. Not to mention having to suck the drips off her own hand, which was always left sticky. No, Galinda didn't care for sweat.

Elphaba didn't sweat. Elphaba didn't use a spade or wink roguishly either. She used a broad and blunted shovel, and cursed like a sailor whenever she accidentally sliced through a root. And, in the scorching late-summer sun, she glistened.

Galinda had already thought of attempting a conversation with Elphaba, who had been working with the grapevines, shrouded by leaves. She had looked so concentrated, brow furrowed and bottom lip between her teeth. "You know, you look right at home," Galinda might have said, but Elphaba was likely to have taken offense, blending so... naturally with the shrubbery as she tended to do. After all, if split-pea-and-oxgrass soup could offend... Galinda was content to remain an observer, silent.

The heat, humid and dizzying, bogged down the air.

Fingers amusing themselves with the severed head of a flower -pink-, Galinda watched as Elphaba plunged the head of the shovel into the earth, wiry arms whipcord strong. Recoiling like a spring, she lunged again, throwing all her weight forward. Stomping the edge of the blade, Elphaba's boots drove it in deeper. Galinda tried to think about architecture, about angles and planes all balanced with and against each other, channeling all force perfectly into the ground. Finding her thoughts dull, she abandoned architecture, the elegance of its form and functionality, and thought about Elphaba instead before realizing that the two were very much the same thing. Arms churning the air, Elphaba stomped again, clods of dirt flying from the crevices in her boot, and Galinda had second thoughts about elegance.

Wiping her forehead with the hem of her dress, Elphaba peered at Galinda from the corner of her eye before tilting her face to the sun and scowling at it. In the cool and forgiving shade of the tree, Galinda considered the view. Sun-kissed indeed, thought Galinda, at Elphaba's perpetually unripe, frowning complexion. Not even the sun will ever kiss you if you give it such looks. She herself would have worn a sun hat to work in the garden, but Elphaba hadn't even bothered to change out of the frock she had worn that very morning. Galinda tried to imagine her string-bean roomie in a lovely round sun hat, and could not. There was something to be said for proportion, after all, even if that something wasn't Elphaba.

Shucking her boots, Elphaba hop-hobbled towards Galinda to sit in semi-shade with the cabbages. She rested cross-legged some distance in front of Galinda, leaning back on her arms, splayed green fingers and toes buried like roots in the cool loose earth. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling Elphaba's skin with a mottled light. Her head was leaned back and her eyes closed, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek. Her loose hair tumbled wildly about her shoulders, fine strands sticking to the moisture of her neck and shoulders and arms. The grainy drone of a cicada hung heavy in the still air. Galinda noticed the pulse throbbing at the base of Elphaba's throat, its steady beat under her skin the only movement in the stifling heat. Head dizzy and pounding, Galinda couldn't breathe.

This was it. This was her perfect moment. This was the moment where throb and glisten and velvet and sinewy suddenly made sense, coming to being with an intensity that truly stole her breath away. Here, her legs folded politely beneath her body, her dress of a decent length, sweat prickling the back of her neck and under her collar and between her breasts; Here, across from the green girl, the girl who had made a statement by locking herself away in her room, somehow succeeding in being both admirable and childish (Galinda recently realized how very much like a tantrum Elphaba's self-imposed exile had been) at the same time; Here, with this strange girl's fluttering eyelids and long neck pulsing with life as her fingers caressed the earth, seemingly coaxing from it an energy and spirit that Galinda had never before associated with dirt; Here, this moment where her senses suddenly came to life.

Head buzzing with sickly heat and revelation, Galinda plucked a petal from her flower, rubbing it between forefinger and thumb. This is what my lover's skin will feel like, she thought. She ran her finger along the edges of the flower, the skin lush and flawless and perfectly pink. Flushed. She shuddered at the thought of sullying this flower with drips of ice lolly. Let it be flushed. Let there be color.

Her lover... Galinda had never truly felt a lover's touch. Ama Clutch's calluses were merely something to be endured. Boq had been wet. He had been an aberration in her novella, where her breath had not been stolen away, but rather, had boiled down to a lack of oxygen. But for Elphaba's soft fingers fumbling with her clasps, Galinda had never felt the flower softness of hands on her body.

Let there be color. Elphaba, at one with the cabbages, glowed. Her skin looked warm and soft.

Galinda's heart shivered in her chest, pounding against her heaving bosom like a bird trapped in its cage, breaking its wings against the bars. Reality splashed over her like a bucket of ice water.

She panicked, her fingers worrying the edges of the pink flower in her hand. Her mind raced to think of Avaric and her gardener and Boq and ice lollies, and she flushed for lack of something to say to shatter the silence that suddenly made her want to scream and kick and yell and rage against the reality of the heat and the garden and of Elphaba's bare arms and those stupid stupid cabbages.

Her perfect moment was lost.

"Why, that's positively indecent," said Elphaba, stirring, and Galinda hated her.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're on about," she bit out, gritting her teeth against the tightness behind her eyes, not wanting to cry now.

Elphaba pointed a lazy finger at Galinda's flower. Galinda was still caressing its edges, slipping her finger to stroke between the folds of the petals. Galinda's mind tried frantically to make sense of Elphaba's insinuations as the flower in her hand turned to a shapeless pink blur. She tilted her head so that her tears fell straight down into her lap. She didn't want track marks.

"The yonic symbolism is undeniable, even to the likes of yourself, Galinda." Elphaba smirked.

Pulling herself together, Galinda stood.

"'Yawnic cymbalism' indeed... why Miss Elphaba, are you calling me loud and boring?" she snapped, halting her tears with fury.

Elphaba laughed, her face splitting obscenely into a grin.

"Oh Galinda," she breathed through her chuckles, "at times, your naiveté can be most endearing."

Galinda floundered for something to say, wishing she knew what 'yonic' meant. Elphaba seemed to have a definition for everything. Galinda only knew how very little she knew. Her chest ached and her heart pounded unbearably. Eyes stinging, she angrily sputtered the only thing she could think of.

"Well you, Miss Elphaba, looked right at home."

And she flounced off, leaving a very confused Elphaba in her wake. Well you, Miss Elphaba, looked right at home. If ever an insult had backfired... Galinda kicked at the ground, sending up a cloud of dust and stones. Even in her perpetual awkwardness, or perhaps because of it, Elphaba had looked right at home.

She imagined Elphaba maybe smiling and shaking her head at one of silly Galinda's silly fits before returning to her grapes or cabbages or her beloved dirt, and Galinda's tears started to flow once more. Elphaba thought Galinda to be an idiot, thought she didn't belong in Shiz, thought there ought to be a Bann placed on Galindas. "Galindas must be seen and not heard." No.

She herself was, Galinda realized, in all her elegance, so very architecturally unsound. Elphaba was angles and planes all balanced with and against each other, channeling all force perfectly into the ground. Galinda was curves and frills and altogether rather shapeless, energies scattered this way and that. But for the first time, in that moment, she had focussed her energies into something... into a self, she concluded dramatically, and with a fresh burst of tears.

She imagined Elphaba maybe seeing right through her, gazing at her retreating figure with an unreadable frown, because she couldn't imagine Elphaba with a look of shock. Elphaba hated her, wanted her dead and gone, would ridicule her 'til she threw herself from tallest tower of Shiz. No.

She would have to throw out her harlequins, her stack of Knights and Damsels, of Rogues and Ladies. Her chest hurt. 'Right at home' didn't seem to be where she had always thought it would be.

She imagined Elphaba maybe contemplating the impression Galinda had left in the grass under the tree where she sat.

She imagined Elphaba maybe reaching over and picking up Galinda's pink flower between two long fingers, slipping it into her pocket with one of her soft and secret smiles.

Slamming the door to their room, Galinda buried herself in her bed and longed for winter.


	4. A Ridiculous State of Affairs

**Summary: **Gelphie! Takes place after Elphaba's most disquieting tea with Boq.

G. Maguire's., with a nod to Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway". And to anyone who's ever cracked a joke about mothers. And Stephen Fry, from whom a line quoted from his old headmaster may have been nicked.

""I should say you'll look back on this summer and cringe. [Galinda] may be lovely. Boq - no, she is lovely, I agree - but you're worth a dozen of her." At his shocked expression she threw up her hands. "not to me! I don't mean to me! Please, that stricken look! Spare me!"" ~Wicked, page 127

**A Ridiculous State of Affairs**

She stalked away from the small cafe in a state, boots clomping heavily on the cobblestones. The racket of the slammed door and its jingling welcome bells seemed to taunt her, jeering at her lankiness as she stumbled awkwardly over her own limbs, dust and grit dancing in her wake. Mockery from inanimate objects; Elphaba felt the urge to spit. She couldn't help but feel as though a healthy gnashing of teeth might not have been entirely unwarranted.

However, not being of the sort who craves spectacle, she settled for hissing distractedly at an errant tricycle as it narrowly avoided grinding her into the ground.

That blasted Boq. Well, Boq and his artsy sentimental Lurline could go fuck themselves, she decided with a sharp jab of her umbrella which cleaved the air in front of her with dangerous abandon. Let Boq and his vague inferences and naive extrapolations and insinuations and hopelessly shocked and appalled countenance at the thought of her affections be damned! What a terrifically sour comedy this was making out to be.

However, not being of the sort who regretted turns of events, Elphaba settled for increasing her already frantic pace and silently seething with resentment.

She might have liked to have been of the sort who could make her entrances and exits out to be memorable events. On occasion, she would even fancy it an enviable thing, to possess the capacity for disagreements of the poignant and silently furious kind: for leaving behind her a wake of regret, her combatants stewing uncomfortably in a shamed hush as she strode victorious from the room. She resented the fact that instead, this particular wake consisted of an upset spittoon, a foolishly besotted and somewhat polarized Munchkinlander who now probably thought he knew something, and a cafe patron left with two halves of a newspaper and a freshly awoken fear of impalement.

The tip of her umbrella caught between curb and cobble and she tripped, startling a string of muttered profanity from her lips. To trip over oneself; how very embarrassing. She swiftly resumed her stride, cursing her knobby elbows and that haphazard gait of one too skinny for her height. She tore through the gates of Crage Hall with her head high and her eyes low, both, she felt, in defiance and in deference to the gazes that followed her. Were they not yet immune to such novelty? Or were they, taking in her flustered composure and heavy glower, anticipating further excitement from Shiz's resident commotion? Unable to help herself, Elphaba did spit, not being of the sort to sigh.

At times, she might have liked to have possessed the unerring dynamism of some of the characters in the stack of silly books that Galinda had recently relegated to the rubbish bin, and that Elphaba had shamelessly pored through in the interest of scientific research. Upon returning to her chambers, she might have liked to have thrown the door open with all her might, relishing with a growl the sound of splintering wood. Stalking the length of the room, she might have angrily stripped, articles of clothing flying every which way, silk shredding and pearls bouncing across the floor, had finery been within her idiom; bosom quivering, were she to be in possession of a bosom. She would rage, prowling her room, reveling in her own furious indignation.

Instead, pointed face flushed with an embarrassment she couldn't quite categorize, Elphaba threw open the door with all her might only to have it rebound off the wall, the all-too-solid doorknob knocking the wind from her sails and the air from her lungs. Instead, she admitted dizzily from her vantage point on the floor, her idiom consisted of overzealous intention and absolutely terrible timing.

Stomach throbbing, gray licking the edges of her vision, Elphaba dimly registered movement by her side. The last thing she saw before her eyes rolled back in her head was Galinda standing over her, arms crossed in a parody of matronly disapproval.

Galinda cleared her throat importantly. "I think I'm ready to talk to you now, Elphaba," she said.

"What?" Elphaba reeled. "Oh, well. Let joy be unconfined, I suppose," she said, and passed out cold on the floor.

* * *

Blinking owlishly, Elphaba came to, and immediately regretted it. The return of consciousness bore with it all recollections of the day's disastrous encounter. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she erupted into a fit of coughing, choking on the cloying haze of potpourri and wildly assorted perfumes that she found herself drowning in. Not particularly caring whether or not Galinda was in the room or whether her actions might offend her if she was, Elphaba staggered over to her own bed, pain lancing through her abdomen.

Boq was an insensitive little prick, Galinda was out, and Elphaba was going to get drunk.

Reaching blindly under her bed for her bottle, she quickly snatched her hand away as Galinda joyously waltzed into the room humming, her arms full of flowers, dirty apron tied snugly around her waist. Galinda and her entrances, thought Elphaba pointlessly, and she feigned sleep.

"That Boq. Honestly, there are times when I don't know what comes over him. Wandering the streets as wide-eyed and lost as a muddy old Quadling in a Gillikin ballroom. If I didn't know better, I'd think him to be sick with love!" Galinda giggled to herself, setting the flowers down on her vanity.

"Oh wait, he is!" she threw her arms up and giggled again. Elphaba attempted to recall the exact level of gin left in her bottle.

Resuming her quiet singing, Galinda retrieved a vase from the windowsill and set about arranging the flowers on the vanity. There was a moment of silence, and Elphaba slitted her eyelids, watching through the haze of her eyelashes.

"He is," Galinda sighed heavily, hands dropping to her side. "Idiot."

At this, Elphaba's eyes flew open, but Galinda had taken up her quiet singing once more. Setting the flowers at last in their vase, Galinda leaned back to admire her handiwork. She frowned. Bending over, she plumped the bouquet between the palms of her hands, teasing the petals. She rotated the vase infinitesimally to the right.

"Lovely," she chirped, clapping her hands together.

Sweet Oz, thought Elphaba, she's gone beyond girlishness, beyond wifeliness. She's become Ama Clutch. She's become her mother.

Galinda bent over again to fuss with the flowers, her back and bottom to Elphaba, and Elphaba felt rather uncomfortable. She saw Galinda, perfectly proportioned, soft in all the right places, sweet smelling hair and warm breath; she saw Galinda and her perfect entrances, that perfectly measured walk. Then Galinda bent over, or put her hands on her hips, or fretted pointlessly over the positioning of flowers in a vase, and she aged. Galinda bent over, and her graceful entrances seemed to be tainted by an ungainly waddle, as though she were in practice for a future round and unbalanced, where all the curves turn unforgivingly to lumps.

Elphaba was confounded as to why this discomfited her so. Perhaps the sense of waste simply didn't agree with her sensibilities. A burst of laughter startled her from her musings.

"Oh, oh look at me!" gasped Galinda, "A silly girl fussing with her flowers." She laughed again, shaking her head and shifting the vase to the left, almost as if to spite herself.

She seems to always be surprising you this way, thought Elphaba, by knowing more than you think she does. Elphaba wondered if they were premeditated, these demonstrations of self-knowledge that would emerge with a little pop and a sparkle just when Elphaba found herself marveling at how ridiculous Galinda could be. And it would catch Elphaba off guard, the spirit of Galinda's actions looking Elphaba in the eye and saying, yes, I know that I am ridiculous, while her body would prepare for her future waddle regardless. 'I know what you are thinking and I agree, I'm silly, so much less than I could have been, but I just can't seem to help myself.'

And that discomfiture that rolled Elphaba's gut a moment prior suddenly took on a new life. She found herself wanting to move to console her, her irritation having dissolved almost against her will. Elphaba wanted to tuck that loose curl back with a pin, pinch those cheeks back to apple redness, throw the freesia out the window as it was clearly that which was upsetting the balance of the bouquet; clearly the freesia, and couldn't Galinda see that the stems needed trimming? Elphaba found herself wanting to console her, shove a basketful of mismatched flowers into her arms and direct her to make them work; she found herself wanting to return Galinda to comfort so that she could continue her performance and Elphaba could resume feeling irritated.

Elphaba forcibly recalled Galinda's ineptitude in the garden, but all former irritation remained dormant, affectionate observation taking its place. The image of Galinda thumbing her pink flower in the hot still summer shade sprung unbidden to her mind, and Elphaba wondered what had happened to that flower. No doubt it was still under the tree. Rotted.

Taking the vase up in her arms, Galinda moved to turn, and Elphaba felt a guilty flutter in her chest. Why had she changed beds at all? Galinda's must have been more comfortable, and after all, perfume, like any foul scent, will numb the nose if the senses are allowed adequate time to adjust. No, but she didn't regret, she resented.

"For my dearest Elphie, some flowers for her night table."

Face lost amidst the petals, Galinda failed to notice Elphaba awake and upright and no longer in Galinda's own bed.

"Hmm hmm oh," she singsonged, "oh, any day with Elphaba in my bed is a good day indeed."

"Well, a round of wretchedness on the house it is, then."

Galinda jumped, shaking loose a flurry of petals.

"Elphaba! You..." Galinda flushed a delicate crimson. Regaining some semblance of composure, she efficiently set the vase down and brushed her hands off on the front of her gardening frock.

"Those," she said, pointing at the bouquet, "are for you." She spun abruptly on her heels and, snatching up a lacy nightgown, disappeared into the washroom. Elphaba's eyes followed her there, taking in Galinda's huff, and she felt slightly better about the causing of spectacles.

Abandoning Galinda to her mood, Elphaba turned to the vase resting benignly on her nighttable. The brightly colored flowers themselves seemed astonished to be there, standing shocked and erect amongst a neutral sea of washed out grays and browns, gazing longingly at Galinda's half of the room.

Elphaba couldn't stand to be snubbed by flowers.

"Men," she sneered to the empty room, and then felt strange.

She waited. What was Galinda up to? Oh, let it not be another bout of sulking. Elphaba rolled her eyes.

"Galinda, I'm getting drunk!" Her face stretched with a sharklike grin as Galinda's head emerged from the washroom with a wrinkle-nosed frown.

"You are not," observed Galinda. Elphaba reached once more under the bed, retrieving her brown bottle, miraculously full.

Galinda eyeballed the bottle with some skepticism.

"That is not alcohol," she said testily as she came to perch at the edge of Elphaba's ragged dust cover. Her toes, peeking out from under her nightgown's double ruffle, dangled an inch from the floor. Elphaba couldn't recall having seen that particular shift before, though she realized she was hardly the most qualified to distinguish between one garment and the next.

"No," replied Elphaba patiently, unscrewing the top between thumb and one long green forefinger, "it's booze."

"Oh," said Galinda, torn between staring morosely at the floor and watching as Elphaba passed the drink under her nose, her green nostrils flaring white as they were assaulted by its brutally pungent bouquet. Elphaba shrugged and lifted the bottle to her lips.

Head tilted back languorously, her long neck pulsed as she swallowed. The fire of the drink brought a faint shimmer of perspiration to Elphaba's heated skin, mingling with the single drop of drink that had slipped from the hot cavern of her mouth to slide down her...

Elphaba wondered vaguely whether Galinda was truly as appalled at her roommate's messy drinking as she appeared to be. Or perhaps her slack-jawed state was merely the unfortunate result of a missing chromosome. Catching herself staring, Galinda's mouth clapped shut with an audible snap as she visibly collected herself.

"Do you do this often, then?" The brightly conversational tone of Galinda's inquiry startled Elphaba into a hacking cough, Quadling moonshine ruthlessly searing her esophagus.

"Oh dear, no! Oh Elphie, please tell me you don't need mouth to mouth."

Hand at her throat, Elphaba shot her a tightlipped glower. Galinda fitfully wrung her hands.

In the midst of crudely wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, Elphaba paused. Taking full measure of what seemed to be Galinda's genuine distress, her expression underwent a somewhat involuntary softening as she reluctantly added 'disgruntled affection' to her list of idiomatic character traits, and felt rather unnerved by who she found herself becoming in Galinda's presence.

She could always blame the booze.

Sending a pointed warning glance in the direction of her roommate, Elphaba indulged in another mouthful, swallowing noisily.

"You look alright now," said Galinda unnecessarily. Swallowing again, Elphaba grimaced, gritting her teeth against the burn.

"By sheer dint of your unfailing chivalry, I'm sure," she deadpanned, tamping down on the playful urge to banter. She silently cursed the artificial cheer of alcohol for making its presence known just when she was starting to relax into the swing of a healthy snark.

"And there I was," she said somewhat grandly, a tipsy flourish coloring her words, "spending my afternoon telling Boq how lovely you are, when you fail to even lift a finger to save your choking roommate's life."

"Lovely? Oh Elphie, you really think that?" Galinda gasped, hands clasped excitedly under her chin.

Elphaba shrugged and took another swig.

Galinda smiled beatifically and, swinging her feet up onto the bed, she scooted up to Elphaba's cross-legged figure to pluck the bottle from her hand.

"Galinda, I'm not entirely sure y-"

"Shut it, Elphie, I've drank before," she wrinkled her nose in a cheery smirk and tossed back a healthy nip of Elphaba's gin.

"Hmm. The finest in Quadling paint-thinner. You like it, then?"

When the fit began to subside and she could breathe again without succumbing to paroxysms of riotous coughing, Galinda wiped her eyes with one lacy sleeve and answered, "How do you drink that?"

"What, alcohol?" Elphaba raised an amused eyebrow. "Rather more easily than you, I'm thinking." The corners of her mouth twitched.

"You sour old thing," snapped Galinda, eyes sparkling, before gasping through another mouthful of gin.

Elphaba felt her chest swell with a bubble of laughter, a wide grin splitting her hatchet-like face. And there it was, that glint in Galinda's eye saying that she knew, again, and that she knew that Elphaba knew as well. Ridiculous. Elphaba thought that if Galinda were to die without knowledge of her own shortcomings, she would not die an unhappy woman. Elphaba couldn't help but feel a spark of envy for this ability to be so shamelessly accepting of one's own choice, though she herself couldn't help but prefer stark reality to a fictional narrative, to a life lived in ignorance of one's failings. At least, Elphaba reasoned, she would then know who to blame when life started to disintegrate, and picking up the pieces would be a much more manageable task. Galinda glowed, and, another pang of affection slicing through her, Elphaba hurriedly drank: 'To the value of knowledge, and the control it affords us.'

"Oh," Galinda hiccoughed mid-toast, swaying, "I feel..."

"Well, I reckon it's a sight stronger than the usual tickle your pretty little buds are used to."

"Why, Elphaba Thropp! No need to be vulgar, though I'm not entirely unmoved by your flattery." Galinda's eyes twinkled. Elphaba's brow knit with momentary befuddlement before she dismissed Galinda's words with an affable smile and, with a show of great deliberation, set the bottle firmly beside the vase.

Feeling a warm pressure at her side, Elphaba swiveled her head to see Galinda leaning on her shoulder, golden curls meshing oddly with Elphaba's curtain of black. Feeling startlingly maternal, Elphaba looped her arm around her diminutive roommate, twining a single blond lock around her spindly fingers. She fancied it to be the same crabapple-scented lock that had tasted of hair back at Caprice, though now it smelled of raspberry roses.

Inhaling deeply, she absently damned alcohol for inspiring within her a heretofore dormant tendency for -she criticized halfheartedly- pointless reminiscing.

Galinda craned her head to look up at Elphaba, who looked down at Galinda.

"You will tell me, though, won't you, Elphie?"

Having already learned some time ago not to be alarmed by Galinda's non-sequiturs, Elphaba calmly took a moment to puzzle as to what Galinda was referring. Ah, the Boq debacle, no doubt. Rolling her eyes, Elphaba nevertheless found herself rather charmed by the affectionate familiarity of their banter.

"You'll think me silly." The bubble of warmth in her chest ached so pleasantly. And perhaps she and Galinda could connect further over Boq, common ground between them being as scarce as it was. "But I have a friend-" Elphaba started, immediately feeling foolish, "-who thinks another friend-" through her haze of inebriation, she wished for a swift and painless death, "-might have feelings for this first friend, which resulted in the second friend running off offended when really, the two friends feel rather the same regarding each other's affections which... " Elphaba struggled, vaguely thankful she had so very few friends to keep track of, as one plus herself seemed to be supplying her with a more than adequate amount of grief.

Galinda's eyes glistened with rapt attention.

"Goodness, I do hope you know what I'm talking about, my dear, for it pains me to elaborate. Such asinine speculation, I fear I've rather lost the will to live," Elphaba said with a measure of chagrin, blushing despite the dryness of her words.

Galinda tilted her head and took hold of Elphie's bony hand, folding it within the dainty pudge of one of her own.

"Well," she said carefully into her lap, speaking to their clasped hands, "it's difficult, when we have our little loves."

Elphaba's mind went to memories of Boq mooning starry-eyed over one of Galinda's monogrammed pencils, of him pleading with Elphaba to tell him her roommate's hat size, of the eyes of an entire cafe staring after Elphaba as she ran away, and she had to concede the point; difficult indeed.

"I mean to say, you can't truly think less of anyone for having them, can you?"

Again Elphaba had to agree, having never though much of Boq to begin with.

Galinda continued, ears pink, "Even if the two are radically different, Elphie."

Recalling Boq craning his neck wildly and Galinda hunching her back like a crone, and the string of spittle that stretched and stretched as they pulled apart until Boq had to break it with his fingers, Elphaba buried her face in the curls atop Galinda's head in an attempt to muffle the laughter that bubbled up from her chest.

"Don't laugh so, Elphie, or I shall have to cry."

A single snort escaped the confines of Galinda's hair, her entire body shaking with Elphaba's effort to remain silent.

"You do like my new nightgown, and the flowers, though, don't you Elphie? I picked the freesia especially. I do remember, you know." Elphaba did enjoy freesia very much, and when making her rounds in the garden, would tend to it more than the rest. But out of the sunlight, in that bouquet... Elphaba made a face, Galinda being too busy playing with their joined hands to notice Elphaba's distaste.

"Elphie, even though you never bathe, and can be more bitter than that... that vile drink, I'm quite pleased that we are roommates," Galinda said with a wobbly smile.

Still chuckling quietly to herself, Elphaba kissed the crown of Galinda's head, nearly tumbling off the bed as Galinda turned and threw her arms around her neck. "Oh Elphie," she laughed breathily, "oh, what a pickle!"

Hadn't Elphaba made it so very plain that she herself had no interest in Boq whatsoever. To be sure, she hadn't quite expected Galinda to fully return his infatuations, however misguided they were. In fact, she had been quite pleased that Galinda hadn't let the prospect of an admirer go to her pretty little head. Or so it had seemed until that moment. Was Galinda jealous? Was she stupid?

"Galinda," she patted her awkwardly on the head, unaccustomed to the physical act of consoling. She took Galinda's face in her hands. "Galinda, my sweet, you must know. Even you aren't so beetle-headed as to think your sorry affections aren't returned, but think-"

She was cut off abruptly by a hot mouth swooping down to capture her lips in what Elphaba had always imagined would be considered a passionate kiss. Elphaba's hands dropped limply to her sides. She distractedly wondered if this was what passion felt like. Eyes wide open, she found herself staring, shocked, at Galinda's gently shuttered eyelids. Never having been in such close proximity to the girl, Elphaba noted the artful shading of the crease where eyelid smoothed out into forehead and eyebrow, the fine separation of each and every lash, darkened just so, fluttering softly against her cheek.

The lips on hers began to move wetly, and Elphaba started out of her daze to scramble off the bed, breathing heavily.

"Oh," she said, "oh, goodness. I'm quite sure that's not what Boq had in mind, Galinda"

"Boq? Elphie, I -- I can't help it, you must understand!" Galinda's hand hovered nervously by Elphaba's face before retreating back to her lap, cowed by a sharp look.

"You're drunk, Galinda, tanked. Completely intoxicated." Elphaba's words were somewhat muffled as she rubbed furiously at her mouth with a corner of her sleeve. "You must go to bed."

Jumping to her feet, Galinda moved to grasp Elphaba's shoulders, face contorting with the effort of holding back tears. Taking a step back, Elphaba inclined her head to look down her nose at Galinda, who swallowed thickly and looked away, eyes bright.

"Elphie, you joyless thing," she said, voice tight, "we could have a garden and everything-"

"And I would sing you to sleep every night after hours of passionate lovemaking, and wish you sweet dreams; a vicarious experience for me, as you might imagine." Elphaba shook her head incredulously as Galinda's mouth opened and closed soundlessly. "Now, enough."

Elphaba maneuvered a silently pale-cheeked Galinda back to her proper bed before moving to the vase of flowers. She smoothly plucked the freesia stems from the arrangement and threw them into the rubbish bin.

Freesia doesn't live long indoors anyway, she thought to herself, eyes trained on the door. She would go to the library, return when she was sure Galinda would be sleeping.

She counted her steps as she made to leave, focussing on walking in a straight line, on not looking at Galinda, on straightening her spine. Her ears strained for any trace of a sob, or a snicker, or a whimpered 'Elphie', but were met only by a ringing silence.

Defiance and deference.

She turned to close the door behind her, her heart clenching as she caught a glimpse of Galinda through its narrowing crack. Her hands fisted tightly in her nightgown, she had pulled herself up to rest her chin on her knees. Her head was tilted downward, lower lip caught between her teeth, and her eyes were screwed tightly shut.

The door closed with a gentle snik. Bracing herself, back against the corridor wall, Elphaba let out a great breath of air, the strength leaving her body all at once.

Licking her lips, she could taste nothing but the sourness of old alcohol. Clenching her jaw against the buzzing in her head, Elphaba closed her eyes. Was she disappointed or reassured that Galinda had been drunk? Either, both, neither. She felt distinctly ill.

She hadn't meant to look back at Galinda.

She slumped, folding in on herself. A whoosh of displaced air tickled her face with the passing of one of Crage Hall's hoopskirted denizens, snatches of hushed conversation snagging in her ear. She caught floating whispers of 'Boq' and 'tea', and then a giggle and the soft patter of receding footsteps.

She hadn't truly thought the freesia to be offensive, merely unnecessary, misplaced, awkward.

Indeed, Galinda should have dreaded more. It was not of Elphaba's doing, this situation. After all, she did always prefer stark reality to a fictional narrative, to a life lived in ignorance of one's failings. And this particular failing was out of her hands. At least, Elphaba reasoned, she knew who to blame. Picking up the pieces would be a much more manageable task, now. To be sure, nothing that Galinda couldn't handle.

Elphaba slid down the wall to sit heavily on the floor, legs splayed crookedly in front of her. She hadn't meant to look back at Galinda. Once again, her exit had fallen short of decisive.

Her chest ached with resentment. She felt ridiculous.

Fin.


End file.
